Life After You
by wolverinacullen
Summary: Sequel to Westsiders, AU/AH, After Logan is killed in the Vietnam War, his family is left in the care of his old friend and fellow ex-angel Victor Creed. Victor knows he can't be the man Logan was, but for his family, he'll try his damned hardest to be.
1. Chapter 1

**Life After You**

_Sequel to Westsiders_

1

_1967_

Her heart beat a little faster as realization set in.

"Please be safe" she whispered, her voice choked with emotion.

Logan smiled and kissed his wife tenderly, as well as their daughter's forehead, "Somebody needs to fight for the country. Who else better than an Angel, huh? Baby, these guys have been my lifeline for years. They're not gonna let me die on 'em now. Ain't that right Vic?"

The hulking blond man smoking a cigar and scrutinizing the other departing soldiers focused his eyes on the family before him. He nodded, "The runt's practically a brother to me Nikki. Don't worry. The only dying he's gonna do is when he comes back here and can't handle the force that kid packs in a punch."

The lighthearted remark made her crack a weak smile, "Thank you Victor."

He moved toward them, "Sweetheart, you just leave runt to me. I'll bring him home to you girls, I promise."

"I'm holding you to that, Victor Creed" she said. She tried to keep her tone light for their daughter's sake, but the intensity in her eyes said it all. _Please Victor, for the love of God, keep my husband alive._

He nodded, locking eyes with her, "Wouldn't have it any other way."

As they walked off to meet their plane, Victor noticed two things. One, Logan only had his military-issue bag. Two, his wife was wearing the dogtags they gave him, clutching them between her hand and her daughters like his soul rested in them. He gave her another reassuring nod, and called back, "I'll bring him back to ya, if it's the last thing I do."

"Jimmy, what's up with the locket?" Christopher North, Maverick of the Hell's Angels, asked his comrade-in-arms across the plane, "You don't bring anything but your army bag and that girly locket?"

Logan touched the silver chain that wrapped the engraved oval around his neck, finding it, "It's got pictures of my wife and daughter in it. That's all I needed t' bring with me."

Wraith was about to say something, but a look from Victor silenced it. Of all the Angels, Victor was the only one who gave Logan the blessing to marry, called him what he wanted to be called, and when he decided to join the army, he was the first to join him. All and all, Victor had always considered James Logan more like his little brother than his friend, and his gut feeling was telling him going off to war was a bad idea.

The war was literal hell. Every day, Logan wrote a letter home. Once a week, he tied all seven together with a rubber band and sent them home.

The mail truck just left camp when the Viet-Cong attacked them.

Victor attacked head on, taking out at least a quarter of them himself. Maverick was taken totally off guard, so was Wraith-they were dead before they knew what hit them. Logan had been shot in the leg twice, but he was fighting. Victor called over, "Something to write home about this time, eh runt?"

"At last" Logan called back, keeping his gun trained on the enemy. When the battle dust cleared, Victor looked around. His ears were ringing from the gunfire, and his lungs burned from the dry air. He waited until he was sure they were through and cleared the land to get to the canteens.

The younger soldiers looked at him like he was mad. He took a moment to let the tension in his muscles melt before he realized Logan hadn't joined him. Logan was a veteran fighter, he always had the same intuition Victor had-so had his intuition failed him? Were the Cong behind him, waiting to strike? He turned slowly. There wasn't a live man in sight.

"Jimmy?" Victor called out, knowing that if the younger soldier were alive, he'd come out of hiding and clock him for calling him by his name. His chest tightened when he realized, that wasn't going to be the case. "Jimmy? Jimmy?" He slung his gun over his back and charged toward the site of their last firefight.

Between the bodies of two dead Viet-Cong was Jimmy Logan's body, with about ten bullet holes in it.

It was the thing he dreaded doing, but he had to do it. He let the car drop him off down the road from the ranch house Jimmy and his wife had lived in. He saw the little girl outside with the family dog, and the moment she saw him, she screamed, "UNCLE VIC!"

He could practically hear the soles of Nikki's leather shoes on the house's wood floors as she ran outside. She saw Victor, and nearly melted with relief. She, too, ran toward him. As he scooped Tayla into the crook of his arm, he opened the other for his near-sister-in-law.

"Calm down ladies" he said.

"Where's Logan? Or did he send you here? Oh Victor, did you get shot?" Nikki said.

His heart sunk as he lowered Tayla to the ground, "Hey kiddo, why don't you show me some of those drawings you're always doing?"

"Okay Uncle Vic!" she shouted as she ran inside.

Nikki searched Victor's face with her wide, intuitive eyes, "There's something you're not telling me."

He pulled her off to the steps, sitting her down and letting his pack fall beside them. He set Logan's pack at her feet. She froze. He saw the cogs turning in her head, and saw them click when he put the locket in her hand. Tears sprung to her eyes and the breath whooshed out of her lungs as if she'd been kicked square in the chest.

"Logan's dead, darlin. They sent me home to...take care of things. Bury him. Take care of you. Apparently, I'm a stain on the pristine army record."

She had no words about him. When the tears started falling from her eyes, he gripped her around her shoulders tightly and murmured, "Let it out, sweetheart. I know...believe me, I know." He felt his own tears spring into her eyes as the woman he considered a sister sunk into his side and cried like the very life had been bled from her soul.


	2. Chapter 2

2

She hadn't been able to sleep for two days. She was constantly comforting her daughter, telling her things that brought little stabs of pain to Victor's chest. So when she finally got some rest, he held the little girl on his chest while she tried to nap.

"Where did Daddy go?" she murmured.

"Heaven" Victor replied, rubbing the little girl's back.

"Momma says he's watching over us. You think so?"

"I know so darlin', there's no way your daddy would leave you all alone."

"He didn't leave us alone, he gave us you."

He looked at her, meeting her soft green eyes, "You really think I'm something, huh?"

She smiled, "I love you Uncle Vic. So does Momma, but she's just sad without Daddy."

He gently guided her to lay back down, "I know kiddo, I miss your daddy too. Logan was a brother t' me."

She nodded as she began to doze against his side, "Tell me a story."

He watched her, sighing as he began, "When your daddy and I were young, we used to rule the world. Not really, but Alberta has always been our world. We used to ride the finest bikes ever made. The open road was our world, and nobody could tell us what to do, or stop us, or give us anything more than we wanted."

He glanced down at the sleeping little girl and said softly, "And then Jimmy met your ma, and he fell in love. He wanted her and wouldn't stop 'till he got her. He did, cause Jimmy always got everything he wanted. I didn't give him shit when he wanted to settle down and have ya back here, in fact, I gave him my blessing. So maybe you think you have a great life, but baby, you don't know great until you've lived like this. Wind in your hair, the purr of a bike all around your body, and nothing but the wide sky and wild road to greet ya."

"Is that all you are, Victor? An Angel to the end?"

He was surprised to hear the wistfulness and sarcasm in Nikki's tone as he lowered her daughter to the couch without a sound, not stirring the young child, "Sorry darlin, I didn't know you were up."

"You called him Jimmy. He said you were the only one he let call him that."

Victor nodded. He saw tears creep into her eyes, "I called him Jimmy a couple times...after he told me. He didn't mind, but I didn't think it fit him..."

Victor went to her, wrapping the tiny, slender woman in his arms and guiding her toward her kitchen. He helped her sit down, gently, watching her slump to the table and cry like a wilted flower in a windstorm. He took some canned soup from the cupboard and heated it up for her. He glanced back over his shoulder, seeing the pain he felt echoed deep inside him. He moved to her side, taking her hands and kneeling before her, "Jimmy Logan was the closest thing I had to a brother. If he were here, he wouldn't want you cryin', he'd want you celebrating. You're alive, so's the kid. He made me promise, several times over, that should shit go to hell and he wouldn't be able to come back, I'd take care of you. I'm keeping that promise."

She watched him stand before she slumped back into herself, falling as if she had no bones. He caught her and supported her. As he held onto her tightly, he murmured, "Jimmy never would've wanted you to mourn him. Live free, like he did. Dead or alive, the man loves you."

The words didn't help.

The funeral was depressing, as all funerals were. It didn't just rain, it stormed. Still, Tayla clung to her mother's skirt as tightly as she could, burying her tear-streaked face into her mother's black skirt at her hip. For the first time since she'd learned of Jimmy's death, Nikki was standing tall, like she was taking it upon herself to be what he was. The strength didn't last the whole ceremony, but at least she started strong.

Victor wrapped her in his jacket when they got to the car, watching as her daughter curled up tightly in her arms. They remained silent, wrapped in each other's embrace, until finally the young girl's sobs broke the silence. Her shoulders shook, her body trembled, and her mother seemed to finally come from her stupor. She rubbed her back and wrapped her in Victor's coat, enduring the autumn air herself.

"What're you thinking about?"

She glanced at Victor, "It's September. Tayla can't go to school in this state, she'll have to wait a while. But we won't have enough money to make it through..."

Victor moved closer, resting his hand on her upper arm, "I'm staying. We'll figure something out."

All she could do was nod.


	3. Chapter 3

3

Months passed. It was a hard winter, just like they'd predicted. Slowly but surely, Nikki was returning to herself, and while Victor chopped wood, he thought.

He thought of what it'd be like to kiss her.

The thought crossed his mind a few times, of course. She was a beautiful woman, everyone knew that. He swung the axe and embedded it in the stump. After a long moment, he gave up trying to pull it out and sat down, running his fingers through his long blond hair.

"Victor?"

He glanced up, surprised. Nikki came closer, wrapped in her thick coat. She paused just before him and looked at the horizon, shielding her eyes from the remaining sun, "A storm's coming, come back."

He stood, gathered the wood and sighed. He started back with her, and after a long moment, spoke.

"Can I ask ya something?"

She glanced to him, a silent confirmation.

"Do ya ever think you'll have feelings for anybody after this?"

She shrugged, "At times...I think you're the only guy I'm ever gonna be able to talk to. You're...you, Vic. You can handle everything that comes with me. It seems like I have War Widow stamped on my forehead."

He dumped the wood on the porch in a neat stack across from the detatched wooden swing before he turned to her, "People know what it's like, y'know. They're afraid to break ya."

"You're not."

"I'm not exactly a good man darlin'. I killed for the fun of it. Had my way with women and had my fun. I'm not the good American soldier people used t' think I was."

She stepped onto the porch, standing close to him. Her cheeks flamed with blush, "You're fine the way you are."

He gave into his temptation, grasping her by her arms. She looked at him, surprise in her eyes as he kissed her. His kiss, though soft, grew more passionate with each passing second. She gripped his collar as he wrapped his arms around her back, pulling her closer. Only one tiny sound broke their concentration after a long moment.

"Wooooo" Tayla called from the door, giggling.

Victor chuckled, "Don't you have some dolls t' be playing with?"

Nikki blushed and slid from Victor's arms, toward her daughter, "Meet us inside, Victor."

Once she'd ushered her daughter inside, he looked out over the snowy ground. He smiled and said, "Yeah Jimmy, I'll take care of her. Thanks for the second chance."

**End**


End file.
